Hermann Hand was born on August 17, 1875 in Vienna, Austria, the son of Ignatz Hand and Rosa Skitzer.¹   According to Elson (1912) he studied Horn with Josef Schandel [sic, probably Schantl] and was a soloist with the Imperial Opera, Vienna. ² He was also "principal horn player in the splendid orchestra conducted by Richard Strauss, when Capel-meister [sic] at Berlin."³ In the above photo he is playing a C.F. Schmidt horn. At the age of twenty-five he came to the United States arriving in New York in November, 1900.⁴ On November 24, 1902 he married Miss Johanna Becke:

And So They Were Married

Herman Hand and Miss Johanna Becke were married in an office in the Erie County Savings Bank building yesterday afternoon. Mr. Hand is well known in musical circles in Buffalo. He came to this country from Vienna several years ago and stopped for a time in New York. There he met Miss Becke who had recently come to America from Bremen. Miss Becke is and accomplished musician. They parted, but met in Buffalo at the Pan-American, where the former acquaintance was continued. Mr. Hand remained in Buffalo and Miss Becke returned to New York. She came here again last week and yesterday they were married by the Reverend Mr. Muller with Austin Clawson and Vincent D. Ryan as witnesses.⁵

The honeymoon was over, however, a year and a half later when Mr. Hand was arrested in Buffalo for non-support. He alleged before Judge Murphy that at the time of his marriage to his wife Johanna, a written agreement was signed by both parties whereby he was not to support his wife on account of the small pay he was receiving. At first Judge Murphy held that such agreement was against the public welfare and declared it void,  reserving his decision until June 1, 1904. On June 3, 1904, The Buffalo Courier reported the following:

Deserted Wife Has No Rights
Mrs. Hand Force a Marriage and Then Signed Away Her Rights

Herman Hand is not only a skilful French horn player but he is also a clever financier. Judge Murphy discharged him in Police Court yesterday in the proceedings for non-support brought against him by his wife. Johanna Hand. That is no testimonial to his musical ability nor to his financiering genius. The former is readily established, when it is known that he has been employed as the French horn player with Walter Damrosch's orchestra. The latter can be readily appreciated when the story of his matrimonial ventures is told. When he came to this country a few years ago he sent for his fiancee in Germany and promised to marry her upon her arrival in America. She came but he delayed the marriage ceremony. She instituted a breach of promise proceedings in the amount of $5,000. Herman then married the girl. The wedding occurred in November, 1902. But Herman was a financier. He induced his bride to sign the following agreement: 
"For and in consideration of $100 paid in settlement of this action and costs I, Johanna Hand, hereby release my husband, Herman Hand from any rights and demands I may have on him for support."
Hand was discharged. Mrs. Hand stated that she would begin an action for a separation and would ask for alimony.⁶

The earliest public performances found for Hermann Hand were with the Tonkunstler Society of New York during its 1904 to 1905 season.  On November 22, 1904 he performed the Brahms Trio, op. 40 with Maurice Kaufman, violin and Alexander Rihm, piano at Assembly Hall, New York. On January 31, 1905 the program included Mozart's Quintet, with Maurice Kaufman, violin, Ernst H. Bauer and August Schmidt, violas, and Leo Schulz, cello, and on March 21, 1905 he performed the Strauss Horn Concerto, op. 11, at the Imperial Hall in Brooklyn accompanied by Alexander Rihm, piano. In the fall of the same year he joined the faculty of the newly-formed instrumental department of the Institute of Musical Art directed by Frank Damrosch, brother of the New York Symphony Orchestra's conductor, Walter Damrosch. On December 31, he was listed among the featured soloists on the New York Symphony's concert at the New York Hippodrome, although the work he performed was not mentioned in the New York Times announcement.

In 1906 Walter Damrosch formed a "Wind Instrument Player's Club" after the model of the Longy Club in Boston. This group included George Barrère and John Roodenburg, flutes, Cesare Addimando and Marcel Tabuteau, oboes, Auguste Mésnard and W. Kirchner, bassoons, and Hermann Hand and J. Chernoff, horns, all members of the New York Symphony Orchestra. On December 11, 1906, members of this club performed the Beethoven Quintet for piano and winds, op. 16, on a concert with the Kneisel Quartet.  From this group George Barrère formed the New York Symphony Quintet comprising the four principals (first named) listed above plus clarinetist Léon H. Leroy. On October 28, 1907 a special concert of French Theatrical and Romantic Music was given by an orchestra of 64 professional players from Boston and New York conducted by M. Albert Debuchy of the Théatre de l'Opéra-Comique, Paris. Mr. Hand was principal horn assisted by Wm. C. Gebhardt, L. Lippoldt, and G. M. Holmes.  The concert was accompanied by a 160-page program by M. Debuchy, with a lengthy history of music in France, including biographies of major composers.

In the summer of 1908, Mr. Hand, who was still an Austrian citizen, traveled to Vienna apparently on family business. On his return voyage on September 22, he listed his "nearest relative or friend in country whence alien came" as "mother, Rosa Deutsch, Vienna", suggesting that his father was now deceased and his mother had remarried. He returned just in time to begin rehearsals with Walter Damrosch and the New York Symphony, on October 4. A week later the orchestra left for a tour of Pennsylvania, spending a week in Pittsburgh, and also visiting Cincinnati,  Detroit, Saginaw, and Rochester before returning on November 1 for the opening of the concert season in New York.  Gustav Mahler had been contracted to conduct the New York Symphony in three concerts including his Second Symphony ("Resurrection") on December 8, 1908.⁷ Later that same season Mr. Hand was hired by the New York Philharmonic as an extra horn for a pair of performances on its subscription series.⁸ 

It appears that Mr. Hand left the New York Symphony for the 1909 - 1910 season.⁹ He is found next as solo horn with the John Philip Sousa Band. In 1909 he called Sousa to recommend one of his better students, Benjamin Hudish, for the band. Hudish played for Sousa over the phone and as a result of his "back door" audition was promised a position for the 1912 tour. He later became Sousa's principal horn. On Saturday, December 24, 1910 the band departed New York for a 352-day tour around world. ¹⁰  In a concert in Wales, the platform on which the Mr. Sousa and the trombone section were standing, collapsed sending them some seven feet to the auditorium floor. Mr. Hand and a couple of others heroically prevented an equipment trunk from falling and crushing them. In addition to being solo horn, Mr. Hand was also employed as an arranger and copyist, a career he would later follow in Hollywood. In particular he composed a violin solo for Miss Nicoline Zedeler to perform. In a shipboard minstrel show for the benefit of Sailor's Widows and Orphans Home, Mr. Hand performed as a female impersonator. Mr. Hand was repeatedly singled out for his brilliant performance of the famous horn call from Richard Wagner's opera Siegfried. The Bandigo Advertiser (Victoria, Australia, May 27, 1911) said it this way: Mr. Herman Hand, whose rendering of "Siegfried's Call" astonished Sydney connoisseurs by its executive perfection, is one of the best known horn players in Europe. Mr. Han, who is an Austrian, was at one time principal horn player in the splendid orchestra conducted by Richard Strauss, when Capelmeister [sic] at Berlin." Mixing a couple of international epic legends, the New Zealand Dominion (August 16, 1911) reported: "The spirited playing of a "Siegfried" fantasia brought back the Homeric grandeur of Wagner, at whose altar lovers of the great German master of instrumentation may worship gloriously the present week. The call at the opening was admirably played by Mr. Herman Hand, solo French horn of the band." By the time the band reached San Francisco in September, the Chronicle (September 1, 1911): On the program will be, by special request, "The Siegfried Fantasie," by Wagner, incidental to which Herman Hand will play the "Siegfried Call" on the French horn."  On November 1, 1911, Herman Hand and Julius Spindler (flute/piccolo) "pulled off a little comedy for the boys" after a concert at the Grand Opera House in Dallas, Texas, according to the diary kept by Albert A. Knecht. In a poem called "Around the World with Sousa,  A Memento of the Tour", Edmund A. Wall wrote:

Our solo horn is Herman Hand,
One of the finest in the land;
His lip is sure, makes no mistakes,
"The Siegfried Call," he never breaks.

Following the World Tour with the Sousa Band, The Evening World, (NewYork, July 23, 1912) vividly reported the following ongoing drama involving Mr. Hand and Miss Louise Nutter:

Lovely Mr. Hand Wants That She Quit Loving Him

Miss Mutter [sic], Says Bracelet Wearing Tooter,
Shouldn't Call Him So Often, Chess?

The troubles of a trombone [sic!!] player are not all wind. So testified Herman Hand, a dear little man, who pushes and pulls in most magnificent manner the big brasso in Sousa's band. When Mr. Hand is not playing the trombone[no!] he caresses his upturned mustachios with a hand on the wrist of which is a bracelet with just the cutest of gold timepieces. He is just too exquisite.
Mr. Hand was on hand in the Magistrate Court to-day to tell his troubles to Magistrate Breen. He had haled into Court Miss Louise [N]utter, a handsome young English woman of twenty-six years of age, now a maid to Mrs. Stebbens of No 4 East Forty-third street.  Once he and Miss [N]utter - well, that did not matter. It was of the present he would speak. Miss [N]utter, she would insist that she must see him, and it was his wish that she would stay away. He wanted that she would let him alone, that she would not call him on the telephone, that she would not annoy him with her visits. When he told her all this, he said, she threatened him with vitrol in the face. Now, he wanted that the Court would not let her. Also!
And then came the romance which had been the cause of it all. It had begun on a steamer bound from South Africa or Australia. When the vessel was out two days they met. He made the advances. It was very charming on the rest of the trip and the romance was continued on shore. Sousa's Band had a triumphant  march through the colonies and where the band went the pretty English girl  was ever in the audience but only the music of the trombone [no!!] had any charm for her. She followed the the band to this country. Then Mr. Hand said he broke the friendship.

And She Still Pursued Him, She Did, Says He.

But the lady would not be a party to the breaking of the friendship which evidently meant so much to her. She told him so and she still followed him. He called her as a witness. Mrs. Thompson, janitress of his apartment at No. 1271 Hoe Avenue, to testify how Miss [N]utter had annoyed him by calling at the house and calling up on the telephone. He called  Clarence Smith, his friend and fellow exquisite, who plays the flute in the band. Mr. Smith could tell all about the romance and how the lady had followed him from the Antipodes and Mr. Smith did.
Miss [N]utter caused a dramatic scene at the opening of the case. She is naturally dramatic, but right off the heel she screamed and cried that the musician had ruined her life. Then she fainted and had to be carried out of the court room. After a while she became calm (pronounced "cam") but non the less dramatic. She told her side of the romance of the sea.  She said she had been left very well off at the death of her parents, who were wealthy. She determined to travel and while going to the colonies from South Africa, Mr. Hand had become her ship companion and the friendship ripened into a warmer affection. She gave him some jewelry, she said. She gave him a bracelet (not the one he wore - oh, no) and gold watch and other trinkets. He declared his undying love for her. By the time she reached this country her funds had dwindled to a mere nothing and then he wanted nothing more to do with her. Was this right? Was it just? I ask you, Judge, was that right?

Trombone [ugh!] Player Flashed His Jewelled Wrist

The trombone [yech!] player flashed his jewelled wrist as he stroked his magnificent mustache and looked wonderingly at the Magistrate and appealingly at the lady. He appeared to think it extrodinary [sic],  very.  Miss [N]utter was represented by Attorney Thompson, formerly of the District-Attorney's office while the musician has for his legal aid Attorneys Levy and Rosenthal. From a conversation with the lawyers it was developed that the English girl was preparing to sue the much mustachioed musician for breach of promise and that she wanted $10,000 to annoint her lacerated feelings. Magistrate Breen cautioned her about annoying the trombone [...] player any more and released her upon her personal bond which mans [sic] that he told her to be good and that he would take her word for it. As she left the court room she swept a glance of disdain over the musician which caused him to let go of his mustache and compulsively grasp the watch on his bejewelled wrist

The case was reported across the country including as far away as Anaconda, Montana. The New York Herald included a photo of Miss Nutter (right) stating that she "thinks that a man who has jilted a woman as she says Hand jilted her should be punished for the sake of other women whom he may feel tempted to deceive in the same way, and as a warning to others of her sex." The article goes on extensively quoting Miss Nutter's views. The Kalamazoo Gazette quoted Mr. Hand as saying "Breach of promise? Bah! ... Everybody knows I'm married. How can I be asking any woman to be marrying me when I haven't got a divorce? I never asked her to marry me. We met on shipboard, and she told me all of her troubles and asked me to help her. I lent her money and paid her bill at a Melbourne hotel. Then she turned against me and has been abusing me to my fellow musicians." According to Miss Nutter, however, "He promised to marry me soon and settle down soon in Australia where he was acquainted. ... He was always talking about his troubles with his first wife, whom he said he had divorced, and told me he would make an ideal husband. Oh, he was very romantic."

Three years later on March 30, 1915, the drama continued in the New York Supreme Court where Miss Nutter had filed suit for breach of promise demanding $10,000. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle found the case "ludicrously funny" and reported that Miss Nutter "was married, but didn't know where her husband was." On April 2, the New York Press reported that the jury "failed to agree after five hours' deliberation" the day before. The Syracuse Daily Journal described Mr. Hand as a "dapper little man" who "gave his testimony in a highly dramatic manner and frequently had to be prevented by counsel or the justice from addressing long statements to the jury. ... One night, he testified, while they were on deck together, she sprang up and cried, 'Do you see the devil in that red light?' Then the witness said she cursed her mother and started to jump overboard. He held her back. On cross examination he admitted that on another occasion, when she told him she ought to jump to the bottom of a river, he said 'Go ahead. That's the best place for you.'" The case was continued to April 12. Nothing further has been found regarding this case; according to the New York Clerk of Courts some records from the period were lost in a fire.

Three days after his fortieth birthday, Mr. Hand married Maria Magdalena Schwartz (1883 - 1948) in Jersey City, New Jersey on August 20, 1915. ¹¹  The couple had one child, Maria Rosa Hand, born May 19, 1920.

In 1916, Mr. Hand joined the newly opened Rialto Theatre's orchestra as solo horn and was featured in May in a horn solo performing Benjamin Godard's Berceuse de Jocelyn, on the occasion of the completion of the theatre's first month of operation. On July 9 he helped arrange a surprise birthday banquet for S.L. "Roxy" Rothapfel, Managing Director of the Rialto "temple of the motion picture and shrine of music and arts," for which he had composed a march, "Hello Sam." The piece was featured publicly in the musical portion of subsequent shows at the Rialto.

At the April 18, 1917 concert of the Tonkunstler Society held at the Waldorf Astoria he performed the Sextet, op. 6 by Ludwig Thuille with Edward Myer, flute, Philipp Kirchner, oboe, Frederick Smith, clarinet, Adolph Weiss, bassoon and Alexander Rihm, piano.

The February 26, 1921 issue of The Billboard announced that at the Capitol Theatre, New York, Balletmaster Alexander Oumansky will present the "Papillon" Ballet by Schumann, for which a special orchestration has been made for this presentation by Herman Hand of the Capitol Orchestra. Mme Gambrielli, Doris Niles and A. Oumansky will take the principal roles and be assisted by ten other members of the Ballet Corps. Earlier that same month he was part of A Great Musical Feat. "The value of a perfectly functioning musical organization was illustrated at the Capitol Theatre, Manhattan, last week, when an original overture was conceived, written, arranged, and rehearsed in one week, by the members of the Capitol Grand Orchestra, and was presented in commemoration of Washington's Birthday. ...  Short scores were written by Erno Rapee and William Axt. A few phrases at a time they were turned over to Herman Hand, who wrote the orchestral score." Also in 1921 he and Rapee and Axt arranged music for the New York revival of D.W. Griffith's, "Birth of a Nation." ¹³

Starting on September 25, 1921 Mr. Hand directed the Lexington Festival Orchestra for a two-week engagement, at the Lexington Theatre in Manhatten. The Irish photoplay "Knock-na-Gow" adapted from Charles J. Kickham's novel, was presented "to a delighted audience that applauded enthusiastically." He  furnished "a proper musical setting and also [presented] a separate program of unusual excellence." On November 7, the Lexington presented Hamlet by Asta Films, accompanied by  scenes from Shakespeare's play. "Incidental and very effective music was provided by Herman Hand who led an augmented orchestra, and the house was very well filled."

On March 24, 1922 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

 On February 26, 1923 Mr. Hand applied for a passport in anticipation of traveling with Paul Whiteman and his orchestra on their six-month tour of England. He and his family embarked with Whiteman aboard the S.S. President Harding on March 3 and returned on the S.S. Leviathan on August 7.¹⁴ Playing second horn in the orchestra was Morris Speinson (1895 - 1989), who previously had been a member of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.

According to composer and arranger Ferde Grofé the Whiteman Orchestra would give informal concerts at Broadway's Palais Royal nightclub at 1:00 in the morning, that included jazz versions of classical music. Since these proved popular with the public, Whiteman decided to present a full concert of classical arrangements to be held at New York's Aeolian Hall on February 12, 1924. Herman Hand made a special arrangement of Wagner's music called "Wagnariana" and Pietro Floridia prepared selections from Puccini's operas, called "Pucciniana. ¹⁵  In a private tryout concert attended by friends and invited critics, however, it was decided  that arranging classical music was a bad idea. With the concert already booked only two weeks away, a young little-known, composer named George Gershwin was commissioned to write a new work which he called "Rhapsody in Blue." 

December 13, 1923 Mr. Hand assisted Maud Morgan, Harp in her concert at Aeolian Hall, along with Dr. W. C. Hall, organ, and Paul Kefer, cello.

On January 5, 1924 the Capitol Grand Orchestra gave a special musical program on WEAF radio, direct from the stage of the Capitol Theatre that included the first presentation of an arrangement by Mr. Hand, "The Skater's Waltz" op. 183 by Emil Waldteufel, in fox trot tempo. In February the Capitol Theatre presented "Scaramouche", as announced by the Long Island News and Owl: 

"Scaramouche" at Capitol has Musical Counterpart

When Rex Ingram's production of "Scaramouche" unfolds on its second week at the Capitol Theatre, it will be accompanied by the brilliant music score which represents the highest development of motion picture presentation. S.L. Rothfafel, whose guiding genius directed the work enlisted the assistance of the entire music staff of the theatre. Herman Hand, first horn of the orchestra and an arranger and composer of prominence, is responsible for the arrangement of the score for the orchestra.

The New York Sun reported that a new radio broadcasting orchestra of twenty men "recruited from among the finest players in the big Capitol Theatre Orchestra gave its first performance on Sunday evening, April  6, 1924. Herman Hand was the solo horn player, and the group included a young violinist named Eugen [sic] Ormandy.  The following month the broadcasting ensemble gave concerts of classical music in Suffern, NY,  sponsored by the Women's Club, and at Rutherford, NJ, sponsored by the Rotary Club.  At the same time the Capitol Theatre's main production included a new arrangement by Herman Hand called "Wagneriana." The Hastings On The Hudson Echo vividly described it as follows: "One of the most thrilling incidents of this long music season burst quite unannounced upon us the other evening when we sauntered in for the Capitol theatre's program. It was the overture Herman Hand, that gentleman of euphonious name and Eurasian temperament, laid aside his French horn long enough to arrange a stirring medley of Wagnarian themes, and the orchestra caught the fantasy to its bosom and made it glow." August saw the premiere performance of the prolific Mr. Hand's "La Bonbonière" arranged to accompany a "charming" ballet number by Frank Moulan and Mlle. Gambarelli.

In1925 Mr. Hand orchestrated Robert Schumann's "Papillons", op. 2, for a fourteen-minute ballet at the Capitol depicting the sad clown, Pierrot, at Carnival. He also was writing "classsical arrangements" for his colleague from the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, Ross Gorman and his "Earl Carroll Vanities Orchestra."  A copyright was issued on February 10, 1926 for "Memories; Reminiscences by Herman Hand", for orchestra, with conductor and piano,  published by Edward B. Marks Music Co., New York.